


leave my loneliness unbroken

by justbecauseyoubelievesomething



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, City of Light (The 100), F/M, Flashbacks, Frikdreina, Nightmares, No ALIE, Other, Telepathy, Trauma, el dorado au, set some time after season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25870486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbecauseyoubelievesomething/pseuds/justbecauseyoubelievesomething
Summary: When you turn ten years old, you hear your soulmate’s voice inside your head.Or so Raven’s been told.//Written for the Final Round of Chopped 3.0!
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin/Raven Reyes, Bellamy Blake/Raven Reyes, Clarke Griffin/Raven Reyes
Comments: 2
Kudos: 72
Collections: Chopped 3.0 Round 4





	leave my loneliness unbroken

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for the Final Round of the Chopped 3.0 challenge! 
> 
> My chosen theme is Canon Divergence.  
> The tropes for the round are:  
> 1\. El Dorado  
> 2\. Frikdreina  
> 3\. Telepathy  
> 4\. Free Space - Soulmates
> 
> Hope you all enjoy!

When you turn ten years old, you hear your soulmate’s voice inside your head. 

Or so Raven’s been told.

When Raven turns ten years old, she hears… nothing.

Even if her mother cared, she’s too drunk to discuss the matter with her. So Raven is left to pick over the silence in her head on her own, like worrying at a scab.

Finn is a year younger than her and when he turns ten he bounds over to her compartment to tell her he can hear everything she’s thinking (“Your thoughts are SO loud!”) He proves it to her over and over until she’s satisfied he’s not pulling her leg.

The only thing they can conclude is that Raven is different (she tries not to think “broken”. She really tries.) But as the years wear on, she starts to think that it’s okay. She loves Finn anyways and that’s all she could ask for. She doesn’t need to hear his thoughts. She just knows them. Knows him like the back of her own hand. Her soulmate.

Her soulmate cheats on her. Abandons her. Then has the gall to go and fucking die on her.

She dreams about it over and over. Clarke’s slow and steady march up the path lined with skull-faced Grounders. The torchlight flickering unsteadily over Finn’s still figure. The sickening moments of waiting.

She tries to project the thoughts she knows he can hear.

We’re going to save you. We’re going to save you. We’re going to save you.

There’s something cruel about a world where the silence in Raven’s head doesn’t change even after the knife slides between his ribs. Something cruel about a world where she doesn’t even realize her soulmate is dead until Clarke turns around. Something cruel about a world where Bellamy is the one holding her and murmuring sounds of meaningless comfort in her ear while she wails over a boy she didn’t really know.

(Broken. Broken. Broken.)

“Are you doing okay?”

Raven swings her braced leg over the seat with only a slight wince. One year and two surgeries later and she still can’t quite get the metal brace to move the way she wants. She slides out of the Rover and slams the door before turning to where Bellamy is leaned against the hood, arms crossed.

“As well as you.”

He follows her as she limps around the back to check on the cracked solar panel. Stupid low-hanging tree limb.

Bellamy nods at the damage. “Run into trouble?”

“No. Just…” she hesitates, anticipating his mockery. “A tree.”

He smirks. “A tree?”

“Shut up.” She pulls a screwdriver from her belt. “If you’re going to stand there and glower at me, give me a hand.”

Bellamy obligingly pulls up a stool and lets Raven hand him screws.

“They’re still at it,” Bellamy mutters darkly. 

Raven chews at her lower lip, keeping her eyes trained on her work. “Well, what did you expect?”

“A decision. Some damned leadership.”

Raven rolls her eyes and pries the stubborn panel off the frame. “You and I both know the only leader we ever had was Clarke.”

The way Bellamy tenses his jaw, makes Raven tense. The past few months it’s like she can feel his emotion. Like he’s living under her skin. It makes her jumpy.

“Clarke is gone,” he says tersely. Then a little louder, “It shouldn’t matter. Give us two more months out here and we’re all going to freeze to death. They need to figure it out.”

Raven carries the broken panel to one of the workbenches pushed off to the side of the garage, knowing Bellamy will follow a half step behind her. He’s not kidding about the cold. With the door open, it’s icy in the garage. Last year, Sinclair would have had half a dozen mechanics working on various projects in the open space. Now, the side doors leading deeper into the Ark remain closed and sealed around the edges, in an effort to hold in what little warmth they could conjure up with body heat alone.

Raven lays down the cracked panel and grabs her soldering iron with a fleeting feeling of comfort. This she can do. Fixing the broken is her speciality.

Without her asking, Bellamy nudges a stool behind her so she can lean her weight back on it and her leg cries with relief.

“Thanks,” she mutters at the same time he says, “You’re welcome.”

She meets his gaze and they laugh for a half second before returning to reality.

“What we need are more of these.” Raven holds up the solar panel to the light, a sharp glint playing around the broken lines.

Bellamy looks skeptical. “Solar panels?”

“Energy. Power.” Raven shrugs and sets it back down on her bench. “Something to keep us warm. Help us filter water. Keep the lights on.”

Bellamy shifts from side to side. She feels his uneasiness crawling up her spine and she puts down her iron to reach out and grab his hand.

“Hey.”

He relaxes, his fingers warm underneath her own. “We’re going to be okay.”

“How do you know?”

She smiles. “I’m the genius, remember?”

“Oh, right.” But he does smile back, so she counts it a victory.

As she lets go of his hand and returns to her work, she mutters, “ _ We _ could go look for a solution.”

“A solution?”

Damn Bellamy and his sharp ears.

“Look, we’ve bled Mount Weather dry. The Grounders don’t want anything to do with us. Let’s go somewhere else.”

He narrows his gaze, dark and piercing. 

Don’t you dare go off on your own.

“What?”

Bellamy sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Raven, please promise me you’re not thinking of going off on your own.”

“Well no… we’d go together.”

“Raven!”

She holds up her hands defensively. “Okay, okay, sorry. I’m just trying to… make decisions. You know? What the Council currently sucks at?”

Bellamy relaxes a little. “Just currently?”

She tilts her head and chuckles. “Why did we ever think it’d be better on the ground?”

It  _ was _ for a little while.

When we had Clarke.

Raven pulls herself away from him, not liking the melancholy turn of her thoughts.

“Alright Blake, stop bothering me. This panel isn’t going to fix itself.”

She doesn’t hear him walk away, but she feels his presence vanish from behind her and she sets her jaw determinedly as she starts to mend the broken piece.

“Raven.”

“Clarke.”

The blonde girl is sitting in the dark, the tall grass creating a nest around her. Raven wants to sit with her, wants to ask her where she’s been, but her leg aches and she knows she’ll never be able to sit comfortably on the ground. So she stands and wishes she had a cane to lean on.

Clarke tips her head softly.

“Do you dream about him a lot?”

Raven doesn’t have to look behind her to see the familiar tapestry of her nightmares.

“More than I want to,” she admits.

It’s easier to talk to Clarke like this. She can say things she never got to say in real life.

Clarke sighs. “Me too.”

The candid admission makes Raven’s heart swell. Not with jealousy or anger. Not anymore.

Sympathy.

“Where have you been?”

Clarke looks up, eyes sharp and bright. “Away.”

Raven rolls her eyes. “Obviously.”

“Is Bellamy okay?”

Raven blinks at her and Clarke looks away, lips pressed tightly together as she considers.

“He feels… sad.”

The words spill from Raven before she can think of how to properly explain them, but Clarke looks like she understands.

“He does, doesn’t he?”

Raven twists her fingers together. “We need you. Your mom… the Council… it’s all a mess. Arkadia hasn’t been able to generate power for six months. We lost half our crops this spring. Mount Weather has been stripped clean of anything useful. Lexa isn’t attacking, but she’s not helping. And now this cold front…”

Raven keeps a brave face for Bellamy, but in front of Clarke she crumbles. Like dust in the wind. A shattered bit of glass.

Clarke’s brow wrinkles. Behind them, the sound of Grounder drums swells and then stops and Raven closes her eyes knowing what moment is playing out again. An unending nightmare.

Finally Clarke looks up at her again, gaze steely and sure. “Tell Bellamy to follow Jaha.”   
“What? Jaha left months ago.”

“Find him. Find Jaha. Find the City of Light.”

The City of Light.

“Clarke. You’re not making sense.”

“Tell him Raven.”

Raven wakes up with Clarke’s name on her lips.

Tell him.

Raven leans against the wall, keeping her weight off her bad leg as much as possible as she waits for Bellamy. She doesn’t have to wait long before he stalks from Kane’s office, the door slamming behind him.

Not a good meeting then.

“So?”

Bellamy grunts. “You were right.”

He doesn’t elaborate and Raven raises an eyebrow before pressing, “Go on…”

“Jaha said something about a city of light before he disappeared. Beyond the Dead Zone.”

“Great! Let’s go!”

“Raven!”

She spins back to look at him expecting exasperation, but instead his face is creased with worry.

“You said you got this information in a dream?”

Raven gnaws at her lip. “I’m not crazy.”

“Not usually.”

They stare each other down.

“It was from Clarke.”

Bellamy blinks. Blinks again.

From Clarke.

Raven nods as if affirming him, although he hasn’t said a word.

Bellamy sucks in a long breath and then blows it out slowly.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay. Let’s go.” He crosses his arms. “But we’re bringing some help.”

They end up with Miller, Monty, and Harper riding along. Jasper elects to stay behind, in one of his darker moods. Octavia is nowhere to be found, probably out in the woods with Lincoln again.

So it’s the five of them at the break of dawn piling into the Rover and pulling out of Arkadia like any normal supply run.

The compound looks deserted as they leave through the front gate, winter’s threatening winds keeping the Sky People huddled indoors.

As they hit the open pastures outside of Arkadia, Raven can’t help but shoot Bellamy a grin. She guns the engine and Miller lets out a whoop of laughter behind her. It feels like flying. Like freedom.

It really does.

They avoid the few Grounder villages to their north and they hit sand around midafternoon. The Dead Zone. The City of Light awaits.

Raven is giddy. Free as a bird flying along the sands. Away from the Council and their arguments. Finally  _ doing _ something.

Bellamy shares another smile with her and she’s so happy she could kiss him.

They lock gazes and he suddenly looks away, eyes shuttered.

Okay, pull it together, Reyes. Stop telegraphing emotions everywhere.

She peeks at him out of the corner of her eye and he peeks back.

Or maybe it’s okay.

They drive over night and they find the City of Light just as the sun is rising. Appropriately.

Raven crests the last wave of sand dunes and brings the Rover to a screeching halt as they’re enveloped in a blinding light.

“Is this it?” Miller demands.

Raven jumps out of the Rover, ignoring Bellamy’s exasperated, “Raven!”

She limps forward a few steps and stops, jaw hanging open.

Rows and rows and rows of solar panel arrays. Hundreds of them. Gleaming in the rising sun.

Raven pinches herself. Hard. Just to make sure she’s not dreaming.

Miller is still glowering beside her. “Seriously. This is it?”

“This is… amazing,” Monty finally says. Raven turns to see he too is openly in awe.

Harper looks as confused as Miller, but Bellamy turns to her with a dawning look of understanding in his eye.

“Power,” he says.

Raven grins. “Pure power.”

“Hey, guys.”

They all jump and spin around, Miller and Bellamy already pulling guns from their holsters.

In the wave of golden, shimmering light reflecting off the solar panels, Raven can hardly make out the figure stepping towards them, hands held up peacefully.

But somehow she already knows.

“Clarke?”

Clarke takes two more steps and pulls Raven into a hug, hair as golden as the sunlight falling across Raven’s shoulder.

“Hi, Raven.”

The City of Light is underground. Raven is wary as Clarke leads them to the entrance, expecting the cold cement halls of Mount Weather to come flashing back. But there are camouflaged sky lights to let in natural light instead, and Raven relaxes as they follow Clarke deeper into the city. She’s grasping Clarke’s hand still and doesn’t want to let go, basking in the feeling of comfort bleeding from the other girl.

Bellamy makes a strange sound in his throat behind them and wordlessly Raven reaches her other hand back and he takes it. Between them she feels secure. Whole.

They begin to pass other people as the underground bunker sprawls out into a network of halls and chambers. The solar panels above power everything, Clarke explains as they walk. Everything from televisions to toasters to hot showers.

Raven sees a young boy looking curiously at her leg and when she smiles at him, he turns and she can see his own smile is made crooked by a deformed jaw. Looking around, most of the inhabitants are carrying radiation deformities of some kind.

Raven bumps Clarke’s shoulder. “How did these people find this place?”

Clarke smiles. “We all just kind of… stumbled on it. It accepts the Grounders who were cast out of their clans for staining the bloodline.” A shadow crosses her face and she squeezes Raven’s hand. “Here, it doesn't matter what you look like or what’s happened to you.”

“Or what you’ve done,” Bellamy whispers. Raven feels his curiosity and his aching hope.

“You just stumbled here?” she asks.

Clarke smiles again. “Sort of. I had a little help.”

She guides them to a smaller room furnished like a house. Clarke’s house.

Sitting at the small table inside is someone Raven never expected to see again.

“Murphy?”

He flashes them all a wry grin. “Fancy meeting you guys here.”

Bellamy scoffs. “We thought you were dead.”

The girl seated by Murphy’s side laughs. It’s a musical sound and Raven decides she likes her.

“John is hard to kill,” the girl says knowingly. Murphy rolls his eyes and leans his head on her shoulder and Raven just knows she needs to hear that story later.

“Jaha is around here somewhere too,” Clarke says. She gestures around the room. “But for now, make yourselves at home.”

The little group spreads out, Monty flicking the electric lights on and off in awe. Miller immediately heads for the shower while Harper laughs at him.

Raven tugs on Clarke’s hand and she’s well aware of Bellamy’s hand, heavy in her other one.

“Do you think we could talk to you?” Then when Clarke raises her eyebrow, “Privately?”

Clarke nods and leads them through a narrow door to a bedroom. The skylight is bigger over the bed, casting the room in warm yellow. Paintings cover the walls.

Clarke locks the door and pulls Raven and Bellamy to sit on the bed.

“I know you’re here to help Arkadia,” she says, seriously.

Her eyes are dancing though and Raven feels it too. Joy. Reunion.

She missed this.

Bellamy’s fingers are shaking in Raven’s palm and Raven squeezes reassuringly.

Right. Work first.

“Yes. We’re going to die if we don’t get power. Something like this…” Raven gestures vaguely around and above them to indicate the solar field. “This is incredible.”

Clarke beams. “I knew you would like it.”

Bellamy clears his throat. “Would our people be welcome here?”

Clarke gives him a sorrowful look and Raven feels the intensity of their unspoken history flash between them. Unspoken words. Then Bellamy’s face softens a little and it hits Raven all at once.

“You two… you two are soulmates.”

Two sets of guilty eyes turn to her and Raven springs up from the bed. Her leg aches with the sudden movement, but she keeps backing towards the door.

“You never told me.”

Bellamy swallows thickly.

“Raven…”

Clarke is already reaching towards her.

“Raven…”

But there’s too much there. Too much unspoken. Too much they can hear that she can’t.

She can’t take the betrayal again. Not from these two.

So she turns. Unlatches the door. Stumbles from Clarke’s home, ignoring her friends’ calls. Limps through the City of Light, past the curious gazes of the citizens, up through the main entrance to the desert. The golden light is blinding and for a moment Raven is disoriented.

The sand is burning fiercely around her sore feet and she’s standing in a sea of gleaming glass.

She picks a direction and tries to walk, but the sand is too deep around her ankles and she trips. Her bad knee takes the worst of the fall and she bites her lip to keep from crying out.

Raven.

Please don’t go.

Raven, please.

Don’t leave us.

Clarke and Bellamy’s voices are washing through her head in waves. Chanting her name. Pleading with her to stop running.

Raven claws at her ears.

“Stop it! Stop it!”

Hasn’t the cruel world tricked her enough? Told her she could never hear her own soulmate, much less anyone else? She actually thought she might still find happiness (stupid), wholeness (broken…)

You’re  _ not _ broken.

The thought is so clearly not her own that Raven sits up abruptly. Sand sifts across her legs, covering her twisted brace.

She squints through the blinding light and listens. Like she’s ten years old trying so, so hard to hear a voice echo through her mind.

_ You’re not broken. _

Tears spring to her eyes.

“Bellamy…” she whispers, tentatively. “Clarke…”

A pause.

Raven. We’re coming!

Hold still.

They emerge from the light. Like angels descending to help her to her feet. Cradle her between them.

“Raven,” Clarke whispers with a voice full of tears. “We’re here. We’ve got you.”

Bellamy takes most of her weight and together they hobble back to the entrance to the City of Light. They sit just out of the sunlight and Raven looks from one to the other, lip trembling.

“I’m sorry… I…”

Clarke’s hand braces her shoulder and Bellamy’s arm is still around her back and Raven can feel their comforting thoughts enveloping her own and it’s like coming home. Like finding her missing pieces. Mending a shattered pane of glass.

She laughs suddenly through the thickness in her throat.

“I’ve never had a soulmate before,” she stutters. “I… I don’t know what to do with two of them.”

Clarke and Bellamy look at each other and then at Raven and suddenly they’re all laughing.

Clarke wipes at the tears on her cheeks. “I don’t know either.”

Bellamy leans his forehead against Raven’s temple. “I guess we’ll figure it out.”

After all, you’re the genius, right?

And Raven hears him. She hears  _ them _ . She  _ knows _ them.

Her soulmates.


End file.
